


Buried darkly at dead of night

by Hypatia_66



Category: The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (TV)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Buried Alive, Gen, Implied/Referenced Terrorism, archeology
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-29
Updated: 2020-04-29
Packaged: 2021-03-02 04:09:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,056
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23909011
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hypatia_66/pseuds/Hypatia_66
Summary: Undercover on an archaeological dig, Illya goes missing and can't be found.
Comments: 8
Kudos: 18





	Buried darkly at dead of night

Summer 1969

The pub was busy. Locals crowded round the bar and a group of laughing archaeologists from the excavation occupied a table in a corner. A quieter group nearby were drinking and talking intensely in low voices. One of the archaeologists, older than the others and less engaged in the somewhat juvenile antics of his colleagues, without seeming to, closely observed the other table. They weren’t locals. One of the drinkers was Irish – from the north by his accent – the rest could have been from anywhere. And from muttered elements of their conversation, it seemed they were engaged in some kind of smuggling activity. The likelihood was alcohol or drugs, but the archaeologist with the fair hair had his own ideas of what they were talking about. He’d been waiting for a sign since he arrived and now listened with keen attention.

<>

The site of the old Roman fort was silent, and dark. It was all too easy to trip on the uneven ground where once walls stood and where barracks full of soldiers had resounded to the everyday racket of army life.

“This is creepy,” whispered one of the men. “Where’s that lantern?”

“Afraid of ghosts, are you?”

“Aren’t _you_? I swear I saw something just now.”

“A Roman sentry, no doubt. Look, little Irish bog-trotter, there’s nothing there. Just get that turf-cutter over here and shut up.”

With the ground opened up, there followed an hour of shuffling and sweating and then it was finished. The hole was partly filled in and the turf put back.

“That’s it fellers. We’ll come back for them in a day or two when the hoo-hah has died down.”

“What if they start digging here?”

“There’s time to get the stuff away before that.”

“I’ll tell you one thing,” one of them grumbled, “I’m not going down there to bring the crates back up. I get claustrophobia.”

There was a muffled curse when someone tried to release his clothing from the vicious grip of a bramble and discovered how it protected itself from attack. The spines went straight through his gloves.

“ _Shut up!_ ” came an angry whisper. “There are people sleeping in tents over there.”

<><><>

The volunteers on the dig rolled out of their tents. They all looked a little unkempt, having done no more than the minimum of ablution. It had been raining – what was the point of washing if you spent your day kneeling in wet mud?

It was one of those cool, damp mornings when there is total silence and everything seems very distant and the imagination populates the mist with ghosts. “I wonder if our civilisation will disappear like this one day,” said Martin, one of the student volunteers. “This was a fort full of soldiers, with a busy town right beside it and it’s all gone.”

The fort they were excavating had once guarded a major river crossing in this outpost of the Roman Empire. Around it a small settlement had developed but all that remained was an empty field, now with several trenches dug across it.

“And that green track was the main road bringing reinforcements and trade,” Mal said, pointing.

“’My name is Ozymandias… look on my works ye mighty and despair’,” said Claire, looking around at the landscape stretching boundless and bare beyond the field that contained the remains of the fort.

“It must have been like the end of the world when the whole bang shoot was recalled to Rome. Forts deserted, no trade in the towns,” said Martin. “Eventually everything must have petered out: no water supply, no sewers, no health system, no currency – all gone with the soldiers, along with education and employment.”

“We could be the same one day. It wouldn’t take much.”

“Doom-monger,” said Vanessa. “I bet some of the population were glad to see them go.”

“Okay lads and lasses. Breakfast! – and be quick about it, the weather forecast isn’t great for later on.” The excavation leader, Alec, broke into their pessimistic imaginings and watched them race each other to the commissary tent.

“Where’s Nick?” said Vanessa, looking up from her plate suddenly. “He’s usually here early.”

“I’ll go and rout him out,” said Brian, laying down his knife and fork. “I’ve finished. He’s probably overslept after last night’s concert.”

Nick was older than most of them but when he’d turned up to volunteer the girls both tried to work next to him. He hadn’t responded to their flirting, though, just kept those lovely blue eyes on his work. He was good company, however. He could sing and play guitar, which made the evenings go well. He’d taught them some very funny songs that he’d written himself.

Brian returned saying, “He’s not in his tent – all his stuff’s there but there’s no sign of him.”

“Latrine?” Mal suggested.

“No, I checked there.”

<>

Leaving the commissary tent, the volunteers went across to the dig where they found Alec examining the ground beyond the new trench. At some point in the past a landslip had caused a partial collapse of the ruins and now newly disturbed ground had exposed more masonry and a hole. This was where Nick had uncovered part of a mosaic floor buried under the soil. He hadn’t caused this disturbance though.

“Look! You can see part of the hypocaust,” said Alec. Sure enough, there was the top of a brick column. It no longer supported the floor, which had collapsed beyond this point and more soil had partly covered the opening.

“Last night’s rain might have helped it to give way,” Brian suggested.

“We must be where the ground subsided under a farm cart back in 1914,” said Alec. “The excavation by amateurs wasn’t recorded properly and was stopped when everyone went to fight in the Great War. Afterwards there was no-one to carry on and it was forgotten.”

“Everyone knew about it round here, though,” said Mal. “My grand-da told me about it when I was a kid. He said they used to play on the site when the archaeologists had gone but after someone fell into a hole, his da covered it over. It was a deep hole,” he said. “The stupid kid came out pretending he’d found treasure. His da belted him for telling lies.”

“Maybe there _was_ treasure,” said Claire.

“Nah, anything the Romans left behind would have been robbed out centuries ago,” said Martin.

“Any sign of Nick?” asked Vanessa, joining them.

Brian shook his head, not very concerned. “Can’t see him anywhere – maybe he’s gone for a walk.”

“But he wouldn’t have missed breakfast. He could have had an accident – we ought to go and look.”

Conscious of the excavation timetable, Alec said, “He doesn’t seem to be on site anywhere. I suppose we ought to make a search. See if you can find him. Be back in half an hour.” He waved them away and they dispersed in different directions.

Vanessa and Claire left the site together to explore the green track, the former main road to the fort. The ground was muddy and showed the tracks of a vehicle.

“These weren’t here yesterday. Did you hear anything in the night?”

“Nope. Slept like a log.” Claire chuckled, “Why, do you think Nick’s been kidnapped?”

“Maybe he heard something. There are footprints, look.”

“Let’s see where the tyre tracks go anyway.”

<><><>

Illya opened his eyes and thought he had gone blind and deaf. The darkness was complete and there was total silence, not even the sound of rain on his tent. Thinking he was in his sleeping bag, he tried to roll over, but he was lying on a pile of stones and soil with something hard pressed against his back. There was grit in his mouth and his head ached. What had happened?

He sat up and flexed his knees, and tried to stand in the constricted space but his head hit something solid. Swearing lamentably, he sat down again. Reaching up, his hand met not a tent pole but a roof of some kind. Where was he? The air was stale and damp. He closed his eyes trying to think…

Soil, stones, a low roof over a dark space… He was underground. In a tomb… and no-one knew where he was except whoever had hit him over the head and buried him.

He must be under the ruins… in the hypocaust where hot gases from a furnace had originally heated the floor above. Groping around, his hands met columns of bricks and mortar, which seemed to confirm it.

He took calming breaths to quell a rising sense of panic, gripped by a terror he hadn’t felt since childhood. Buried under rubble in a pocket of air… But that time, he had wormed his way out through gaps in the fallen masonry. He had survived. He would survive again… if he could only stop panicking and think.

The brick columns were originally constructed in a grid formation to support the floor. So if he followed them he’d get to the edge… wouldn’t he? There must have been a vent in the floor for the hot air, but where? The flue from the boiler… if he could find the edge of the room, he might work his way round to wherever the boiler house must have been and get out that way… Stupid… that was underground, too. He felt for his communicator. It wasn’t there. He groaned aloud.

What if there was no way out? Think, Illya, think!

He began to squirm between the brick columns, feeling his way with elbows, knees and hands. The columns were evenly spaced which meant he had idea of distance, but he had no way of knowing what direction to take. If the room above had been large, he might be on his way into the middle rather than towards the edge. He remembered noticing a dip in the ground, where the land seemed to have subsided… maybe that was where he had been pushed in. Even if he could find it in this darkness, there was a very good chance of bringing down a lot more earth on top of him. In any case he had nothing to dig with, and he didn’t think the air would last.

Even in extremis, the survival instinct keeps people going – no-one believes they’re going to die, and even Illya, whose survival instinct had been tested many times, didn’t believe it.

He wondered what time it was.

<><><>

The green lane, once a major road leading to the fort, led the two young women to a farm road where muddy tyre marks indicated the direction the probable farm-vehicle had taken. A distinctly non-agricultural vehicle was parked opposite and the individual standing beside it looking around was no rustic. When the girls appeared, he beamed and came over.

“Hi, I’m a little lost, perhaps you can help,” he said in accents even less locally rustic or agricultural.

“America’s that way,” said Vanessa pointing west towards the coast.

The man laughed. “I know the way there, thanks. No, I’m looking for a friend – he’s working on an archaeological site around here someplace.”

“What’s his name?” they asked.

There was a fractional pause before he replied, “Nick.”

“We know a Nick – but he’s French we think, not American. Nick Carrier, is that him?

“That’s him.”

“He works with us. We’re looking for him too. He’s wandered off and we can’t find him.”

The man looked concerned. “I’ll come with you,” he said and forced a smile. “Take me to your leader.”

They looked doubtfully at his manicured hands, his beautifully polished shoes and city clothes, and his not-a-hair-out-of-place dark head. “You’re going to get very muddy,” they said. “Did you bring waterproofs and boots?”

If they had known him as well as his friend did, the fact that he was equipped with both would have been a considerable surprise. The spotless boots were a little surprising because they were the very expensive green ones worn by the County Set but, though apparently unworn, boots they were and they and the brand new (and very expensive) Barbour over his arm would keep that city suit reasonably free of mud.

“Can I leave the car there?” he asked. It was in the space in front of a farm gate.

“Better not. You could bring it into the lane. The farmer won’t need to come down here while we’re working on the site. If he does, you can move it.”

<><><>

When they arrived back at the site Alec came over. “Who’s this?” he asked.

They had forgotten to ask his name so the American introduced himself.

“I’m Napoleon Solo,” he began and saw the girls hide grins. “Yeah, really. Parents, huh. Who’d have’ em? I was hoping to find a friend of mine – Nick, who’s working here.”

“Who’s also missing at the moment,” said Alec. “All his stuff’s still here, we can’t think where he would have gone.”

“Anything I can do?”

“Not really, if you don’t know the area. If you want to wait, you might stand by to hold the fort, so to speak, while we work,” he said, and smiled uncomfortably at his own pun. “But if you’d like to see what we’ve found I’ll show you round. Vanessa, Claire – perhaps you could start work over there.”

He led Mr Solo into the excavated area and showed him the mosaic floor that had been uncovered the day before. “Nick found that yesterday. It’s almost certainly the bath house – see the design of fish. And that’s the top of one of the columns supporting the floor. Below it is the space for the hot air that warmed it – it’s called the hypocaust.”

“Is that so?”

They walked around the uncovered mosaic and looked at the newly exposed masonry. Avoiding the hole, Solo noticed how the ground suddenly dipped away under some brambles, and that someone or something had broken some of the thick, thorny stems. Some of the turf under them looked as if it had been ripped up and carefully put back.

“This looks like an uncomfortable spot to excavate,” he said.

“We didn’t do that. We think it might be badgers – they do a lot of damage to archaeological sites.”

Solo bent and pulled experimentally at the turf. It came up like a blanket and exposed another larger hole. “Not badgers,” he remarked. Alec exclaimed and knelt to look down it. Napoleon shuddered at the thought of bare knees on cold wet grass and mud, but the archaeologist seemed oblivious.

“Anyone home?” called Napoleon. There was no echo: the ground swallowed his call.

Alec was about to make an obvious point about long-buried remains but before he could speak they heard a sound from below. “Listen… What was that?” he said.

“Is that you?” Napoleon shouted.

Alec leaning further over the hole held up a hand. “Good God… What’s that I can hear? …Someone’s coughing,” he said. “Nick? Is that you? What the hell’s he doing down there?”

“I’d say someone has tried to bury him alive,” said Napoleon.

Alec looked at him for a disbelieving moment then leapt up and ran shouting for spades and rope.

<><><>

The muddy soil and stones had given way to dust and the air was getting very bad. He must be going the wrong way. Illya turned with difficulty to go back using the space between the next row of brick columns. In total darkness and now finding breathing difficult, he could only grope blindly ahead of him. Apart from cobwebs, the way had been clear of debris up to now, so when he met a blockage, it seemed likely to be part of the collapsed roof and therefore closer to where he had been pushed in. Something tore at his clothes as he wriggled past and when he felt around more carefully, he found crates – long, flat crates stacked between the columns. The kind of crates you store weapons in, and the wood smelled new. He put his head down on his hands and sobbed in relief. They would come back for these. He might get out yet. He might survive this.

Something roused him … had he been asleep? … was that voices? Were his eyes playing tricks or was there a faint grey light? Hardly caring that it might be someone returning for the crates, he tried to call and managed only a croak. In raising himself, he pushed one of the crates off the pile. It made a noise as it fell and he coughed at the dust it raised. He slid down again and closed his eyes.

<><><>

Alec ran back with rope and spades and everyone came to help. For their trouble, several suffered painful wounds pulling the thick bramble stems away. The wicked spines penetrated even thick gloves. Napoleon’s suit also suffered when a stem sprang back and caught his sleeve.

Alec and Brian now able to get to the hole, worked together to dig out and remove the soil, trying not to damage the site itself. Even in a calamity, records must be kept. Martin was delegated to take photos to record evidence of what looked like a crime, as well as to keep an archaeological record, and the others had brought sieves to check the soil for finds.

The opening was now safe enough to explore. “It’s a tight space,” said Alec, looking round at his crew and the visitor. “We need someone fairly small to go down. Anyone want to volunteer?”

Napoleon looked at the narrow gap between the columns and, regretting his waistline, shook his head. He’d be no help if he got stuck.

“I’ll go,” said Brian, who was thin but tall.

Vanessa shook her head and took a breath. “You’re much too big,” she said. “It had better be me. I’m the smallest here,” and smiling at Solo, added, “and I’m more suitably dressed for it.”

He smiled back but said seriously, “Find him. I’ll be in your debt – he’s quite valuable.”

“Sure you want to do this?” said Alec.

“Not really, but I will,” she said, trying to look calm. 

Donning helmet, gloves and kneepads, she was ready. They gave her a torch, tied a rope round her waist in case she couldn’t find her way back and let her down into the opening where she got down on her knees and shone the torch into the darkness calling, “Nick? Nick … are you there?”

<><><>

The sound of someone moving about in the dark roused Illya from his torpor, then he heard someone calling his name. He tried to speak but he was too dry and couldn’t even clear his throat.

“Nick? Is that you?” In the darkness she heard something from nearby. “Nick, cough again.”

He croaked again and saw a beam of light, and suddenly someone’s hand found his foot. “Oh, thank God Nick. I’ve found you. Are you all right?”

He raised himself on his elbow and reached out. His hand was clasped in a muddy glove. “It’s me – Vanessa,” she said. “I won’t blind you with the torch – can you move OK?” and was relieved to hear an affirmative croak.

He wriggled to turn and then Vanessa, hearing his desperate panting breaths in front of her, removed her gloves to clasp his face. “We’ll get you out, Nick, just follow me,” she said reassuringly, and nearly wept when she felt dusty lips pressed to her palm.

<><><>

It was a nail-biting wait for the people on the surface, but a slackening of the rope was reassuring. “I think she’s coming back,” said Alec. “Vanessa! Have you found him?”

There was an indistinct reply, but it had a positive sound and their faces brightened, Napoleon’s in particular.

“Here they come!”

Vanessa’s head appeared, then Nick’s mop of once-blond hair, now matted with mud, blood and brick dust, emerged from the darkness.

“Orpheus and Eurydice,” said someone wittily.

Alec and Brian reached down to grasp their hands to pull them out but Brian was caught in the bramble. Wrenching his arm to get free, he brought a root up out of the loosened soil and part of the bank collapsed, pouring a torrent of earth into the hole. He sprang back to avoid going down with it and landed on his back.

“Getting digging!” shouted Alec.

Grabbing a spade, he started to shovel out the earth but before any of the archaeologists could join him, Napoleon was beside him, digging furiously. Then they fell on their knees scraping the soil away with their hands for fear of braining the two people trapped under it. Alec was worried about further collapse. “The floor may have been destabilised,” he said, wiping sweat from his eyes. “We need to support it before we go down again. Someone go and fetch props.”

<><><>

“Vanessa? Are you all right?” Illya could still only speak in a whisper. He had dragged her back as the soil began to pour into the opening and they had retreated to a safer distance.

“I think so. You?”

“Well, no worse, but a lot dirtier.”

“What happened?”

“Bank collapsed, I guess. Is your flashlight working?”

She clicked it. “No.”

They sat for a while then she touched his arm. “Nick how did you get in here, and why?”

“Someone hit me. Perhaps he thought he’d killed me and wanted to bury the evidence.”

This was an unexpected answer. “But why would anyone hit you?” she asked.

“See if we can start to shift some of the soil.” He said, still in a croaky whisper, and not answering. She touched him again.

“Nick… Tell me.”

“Because – I’m here to track a smuggling operation. I saw them putting stuff down here.”

“Who were?”

“I don’t know. We think it’s weapons for Ulster.”

“Ulster? What for?”

“Haven’t you been listening to the news?”

“I haven’t bothered with the news since I started here. But what is all this to do with you, and who’s ‘we’?”

“I think we should try to clear some of this soil.”

He had warned her off again, so she stopped asking and crawled forward with him, groping for the heap of earth. Scraping at it with their hands, it was clear they would achieve very little. Then Illya touched metal, something quite large that had been flattened by the pressure of earth and stones. “Something’s come down with that soil,” he croaked and lifted it out. “Metal…”

“What is it?”

“I think…No – take it, see what you can make of it.”

“Isn’t it heavy… It’s… it feels like a helmet. A bit squashed, but a helmet – I can feel cheek pieces and decoration… Gosh.”

<><><>

This time, they propped the sides of the hole to prevent further mishaps. They hadn’t found dead bodies under the collapse, so Claire went for water and cloths while they shouted down hopefully.

After a few moments two very dirty human beings emerged and were hauled out, together with their prize. Illya’s eyes were closed tight against the light after being in darkness for so long. Claire knelt beside him and wiped his eyes and lips with a wet handkerchief before holding a mug for him to drink. Napoleon wrapped the waxed jacket round his shoulders. “Can’t leave you alone for a minute,” he said.

The eyes flew open and creased in the sunshine. “Napoleon?” The croak was better now.

“Got it in one, my friend.”

He looked around and whispered, “Napoleon, there are crates of weapons down there,” he whispered. “They’ll be back for them. We need to …” he stopped to breathe.

“I’ll deal with it. Relax, Illya.”

He looked around for his rescuer. “Vanessa…” He looked at her a little shamefaced. “… I haven’t thanked you… sorry.”

“You did thank me, Nick,” she said gently. Had he forgotten it? A kiss in the palm of the hand held more gratitude than mere words.

He smiled shyly. “Show them what we found,” he said.

Alec exclaimed when she handed it to him, a partly flattened, greenish metal object with stylised designs of curly hair and a Phrygian cap. He brushed some of the dirt off it. “I don’t believe it! A helmet – a Roman cavalry helmet… where was it?”

“It came down when the bank collapsed. We found it when we tried to dig ourselves out.” She grinned at his expression and returned to Illya.

Napoleon looked over his shoulder and said quietly, “Nick says someone has dumped crates down there.”

Alec was surprised. “Crates? What of?”

“Smuggled goods of some kind, possibly weapons.”

More interested in the treasure sitting in his hands, Alec said, “You want us to get them out? Not going to be easy in that tight space – none of the men is what you could call jockey-size. We may have to rely on the women.”

Napoleon the connoisseur had noted the musculature that both women had developed after a week or two’s digging and saw no problem with this. “And I think we should get the appropriate authorities to arrange an ambush. I guess someone will come back for those crates quite soon.”

He looked at Illya sitting with both ministering angels who were cleaning him up. “We must also get some proper medical attention for my friend Nick.”

Mal put Illya into the dig’s Land Rover to take him to be patched up at the local hospital. Napoleon came to see him off. Illya looked at his friend more closely, shading his eyes. “Not your usual immaculate self, Napoleon. Have you taken up archaeology?”

Napoleon looked down at his suit and waved him away. Then he used his communicator to put in a call.

<><><>

When the Land Rover arrived back and rumbled onto the site, they found strangers settling in. Illya, pale but clean, climbed down to find Napoleon waiting for him. “Quick work,” he said to him. “Who are they, MI5?”

“Special Branch. Counter-terrorism squad.”

“Have they brought the crates out yet?”

“Actually, no. We need you to direct that operation – Vanessa doesn’t know where they are, and those men are all a lot bigger than you so they can’t go down till the crates have been brought nearer the hole.”

Illya grimaced. “You mean I’ve got to go down again, _and_ bring them out?”

“With the girls, Illya. There could be worse fates.” Napoleon’s grin was almost an affront.

“Three’s too many. There isn’t room,” Illya growled, and walked over to the group gathered round the entrance to the hypocaust.

“Ah, Nick,” said Alec, looking dubiously at the plaster on Illya’s head. “How you feeling?”

“You mean am I up to dragging a lot of crates out of a labyrinth?”

The Special Branch officer in charge looked him up and down critically and said, “That’s just what he does mean, I’m afraid.”

“You’d have the proper gear this time,” said Alec, pointing to a heap on the ground.

Illya sighed. “All right. You’d like me to go now, I take it.”

Vanessa came running as he strapped the kneepads on and prepared to climb down a ladder into the depths. “Are you OK? You shouldn’t be doing this, Nick,” she said under her breath.

“I’m fine. Don’t worry. It won’t take long.”

They were roped together this time and descending into the darkness once more, they disappeared from sight.

“Can you find them again?” said Vanessa, crawling behind him.

“I’m trying to think… When you found me, I had just got past them. Can you remember which line of columns you followed?”

They shone torches, which helped very little with the choice. “That way, I think. I followed the sound of your coughing.”

“Yes, look, I can see the marks we left.”

They crawled on, torches clamped between their teeth. In the end it wasn’t very far but getting the crates back was awkward. Fearful of damaging the brickwork and bringing the roof down again, they manoeuvred them with great care into the space between the columns and Illya pushed while Vanessa guided their passage.

“They’re very heavy,” she puffed, and stopped to get her breath. “Nick, who _are_ you really? That’s not your real name is it? – I heard Napoleon call you something else.”

Her torch lit his face and she watched him drop his eyes as he considered whether to answer.

“My name is Illya Nikolaivitch Kuryakin,” he said at last. “That’s where the Nick comes from.”

“And what do you do?”

“I’m in law enforcement,” he said.

“Police?”

“No, U.N.C.L.E.”

“Never heard of it.”

“It’s an international organisation. Let’s keep going. Are you ready to move again?”

He was the original human clam, she decided, and gave in and continued to pull. 

There were five crates in all, and when Vanessa had climbed up, Illya roped them for lifting out. He climbed up himself as the last one was hauled out.

<><><>

There was little else for the UNCLE agents to do now. The Special Branch officers took charge of the crates and resisted all offers of assistance at an ambush.

Napoleon found Illya packing up his tent. Without looking up, Illya said, “Did you know? That my role was to be the tethered goat? That was it, wasn’t it? The …patsy, isn’t that the term for a dupe?”

“Illya…”

“Don’t bother. I’ve carried out my orders successfully. They don’t need any more from us. We can go.”

“Vanessa’s outside. She wants to say something.”

Illya’s jaw tightened. He flung down his rucksack and stalked out. He forced a smile when he saw her, so it was hardly a convincing welcome. “Did you want me?” he said.

“Illya… You’re not going without saying goodbye to everyone?”

He looked a little sheepish at that and said, “No, I’ll come.”

Napoleon watched them go over to join the other archaeologists who shook his hand and slapped him on the back. They were evidently congratulating him on the find he and Vanessa had made of the Roman helmet – not the twentieth-century weapons, which were of minor interest.

When he parted from them, Vanessa kissed him on the cheek and he came back a little pink but also a little more cheerful.

“Well?” said Napoleon.

“They’re all pleased about the helmet.”

“Right. So, forget about being a tethered goat or a patsy, you’ve made their summer.”

Illya’s smile was unforced this time.

**Author's Note:**

> Title from The burial of Sir John Moore at Corunna, by Charles Wolfe: “We buried him darkly at dead of night”.
> 
> The whole bang shoot: slang for ‘the whole lot’
> 
> Hypocaust: the space under a floor for heating buildings with hot gases in Roman villas and forts.  
> Barbour. Waxed jacket worn by country people in the UK. To be convincing, it mustn’t ever look new.


End file.
